Some of the cons are a result of Hertz, but most are directed at the car rental industry in general. Despite how some complain about the high cost of renting a vehicle, the reality is that the profit margin is tiny. This forces the company to keep cost at impossibly low levels. This is magnified by the recent downturn in the economy. That means you have to work 50-60 hrs a week to get decent pay (due to the ridiculously low wages), you are constantly dealing with customers complaining about high mileage cars (the worst complaints are the ones in which you can do absolutely nothing), you continuously have more responsibilities put on you shoulders (ex. the company refuses to hire more drivers, hence managers and management trainees are forced to move cars around, leaving one person to actually run the office), and probably worst of all, the business plan is based on doing a very high number of rentals and high utilization, meaning you almost never have permission to turn away rentals, even when you already do not have enough cars to meet your reservations ( I once had a line of customers waiting for 2 hours for their vehicles). The best example of this is how the airlines overbook their flights to ensure all planes are packed. Both cases lead to many, many irate customers. The end result is a high turnover rate, meaning you are constantly short staffed.
In my experience, probably 50% of this job is sales related (selling optional coverage, trying to gain business from local body shops, etc.), with the other 50% being made up of fleet management (including depreciation, utilization, etc.), customer service, and general management (for example, training new hires, managing payroll and expenses, etc.). However, when it comes to promotions, your sales ability accounts for probably 90% of the selection process. This means that you have people promoted that are great at sales and terrible at management and on the flip side, great potential managers are not promoted because their sales numbers are low. Of course, there are many good managers as well.
Finally, despite the fact that they advertise this position as a management trainee program, this could not be considered a true MT program under any definition that I am aware of. You are hired as a sales person and if your number is high enough, you can be eligible for a promotion. In my area, we probably have two dozen MT's and about 6 or 7 manager positions. Simple math can tell you that despite their claims, they simply are not hiring people with the intention for them one day becoming managers. Calling this a Management Trainee is like calling a private in the Army a General Trainee. Sure that private may one day become a General, but it's through being constantly promoted, not because he/she is in some sort of training program.
